Ultimate Farming Route

Ladies and Gentlemen, I hereby present to you my very own farming route calledThe Ultimate SkyHigh Farm. I've been inspired by a lot of people asking me how in the hell my Barbarian is PL93 with 341 hours played.I did NOT use any Shrines during gathering data to ensure the very best accuracyIt took me two whole days to gather all the necessary data, thus I am 100% sure you will find it very effective.Read all the information thoroughly to make sure you don't miss any important bits!Let me point out that I never use Hellfire, Rubies, Leoric's Signet, therefore the data given to you in this guide is without any XP bonuses whatsoever!Data gathered at Monster Power 3

Here, take a close look at these figures:Alkaizer Route:13,655 XP/Second819,350 XP/Minute49,161,000 XP/Hour

Now that we have got that out of the way, let's get on with the route itself, shall we?

The Ultimate SkyHigh Farm is all about being as efficient as possible in order to achieve the highest XP and Loot gain at the same time.Video link to The Big 6: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mYPhOFYLbQoThere are two varieties of my route, one of which is more effective but can become boring real quick. The Big 6 is one of them, it's designed to bring you more entertainment followed by worse results though. As the name suggests, it consists of 6 different (and best) Act 3 areas:

The reason behind such order is simple - to maximize the XP gain. Starting with Skycrown Battlements because it has the lowest amount of XP/Second (apart from Fields of Slaughter, but we will get there in one second), therefore it's best to gain 4-5 Nephalem Valor stacks in there. Fields of Slaughter don't get to be first place to visit because we go there when we Teleport to Rakkis Crossing and work our way down to the Fields. Same goes for Tower of the Damned Level 1, as it's not always 100% sure we will get 5 NV stacks on the Battlements.

Additional information:Run takes 12 minutes!16,028 XP/Second!961,680 XP/Minute!57,700,800 XP/Hour!Elite encountered every 38 seconds!___________________________________________________________________________However, if you want even more Loot and you are willing to sacrifice more XP for it, you should definitely consider visiting these two places:

Always make sure the first time you do The Big 6 Loot Expansion TP out from The Core of Arreat AFTER you got the checkpoint - you will spawn there each time you start a new game.

Additional information:Run takes 14:36 minutes!14,195 XP/Second!851,752 XP/Minute!51,105,150 XP/Hour!Elite encountered every 35 seconds!Remember that all the data has been collected by me, therefore you will not get the same results!___________________________________________________________________________Now that we have The Big 6 out of the way, let's get on with the real XP goodie!Video link to the Tri-Farm: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VIaiFhqCRIThe Tri-Farm consists of only 3 areas and was designed to bring you the highest efficiency in XP farming possible.Arreat Crater Level 2, Rakkis Crossing and The Keep Depths Level 2 will not bow down to any other places in the game. The first time you try this, go in this order:

The Keep Depths Level 2 - Arreat Crater Level 2 (Go into the Tower of the Cursed to get the Checkpoint!) - Rakkis Crossing. Now every time you start the game, you should spawn just outside Arreat Crater Level 2 - The Keep Depths Level 2 - Rakkis Crossing.

Additional information:Run takes 6 minutes!18,554 XP/Second!1,113,280 XP/Minute!66,796,800 XP/Hour!Elite encountered every 37 seconds!___________________________________________________________________________However, if you want more Loot and you are willing to sacrifice more XP for it, you should definitely visiting these two places:

Always make sure the first time you do Tri-Farm Loot Expansion TP out from The Core of Arreat AFTER you got the checkpoint - you will spawn there each time you start a new game.

Additional information:Run takes 7:53 minutes!15,791 XP/Second!947,460 XP/Minute!56,847,600 XP/Hour!___________________________________________________________________________And for those interested in how the data gathering process was done, let me explain it to you!I've done 20 runs consisting of areas with either high mob density or high elite pack numbers in this order:The Core of Arreat - The Keep Depths Level 1-3 - Battlefields (Fortified Bunker, Cryder's Outpost, The Forward Barracks) - Skycrown Battlements - Rakkis Crossing - Fields of Slaughter (Caverns of Frost) - Tower of the Damned Level 1 - Proceed until the end of Tower of the Cursed Level 2; repeat.

As you can see, the only places WITHOUT the full Nephalem Valor were The Core of Arreat and The Keep Depths Level 1. Those two had an average XP/Second gain anyway, thus even if I tested them WITH the full Nephalem Valor, no route would change a bit.

You don't have to worry about any information being completely false as I have done my very best to make sure it's as accurate as possible.

The XP/Second for each route was calculated of the XP/Area Chart I've written down while doing the standard runs explained above, therefore the ACTUAL XP gain is a little less (due to the fact that you get the Nephalem Valor stacks as you go) but it's only ranging between 7 and 3 % (7%-3% less XP applies to the Alkaizer route given at the top as well) so the difference really is quite minimal.

Now let me show you the average XP, XP/Second, average Elites, Elite/Second in each area:

I really appreciate all the feedback you guys are giving me! And it also means a lot that you like the routes!

50 B6LE (Big 6 Loot Expansion) Runs: 8 set items, 26 legendary items

Edit: 10/12/2012- Agree with one commenter on +XP per items; I didn't sleep too much this night and therefore I completely forgot about Nephalem Valor Stacks not counting in the % Bonuses on items such as Hellfire.- Added data gathering process.11/12/2012- Added more in detail information about the data gathering process.- Changed the guide format and visuals for better reading.- Added Loot Expansion to each route, to provide more variations to the player.- Added video to The Big 6.15/12/2012- Added loot information about first 50 runs.

I gotta ask though, did you collect the xp per hour for every different area wi 0 never stacks? Otherwise the experiment isn't very fair if you say ran the battlements first (as in the order you suggest) then rakkis and then the fields and the data you collected was with 5 stacks each time... (This would be why the fields gave you the most do per hour).

Or maybe your experiment was fair? Did you randomise the order each time? I few more days of results would def give you a better average.

Glad you ask!At the time of testing I was doing standard A3 runs:The Core of Arreat -> The Keep Depths Level 1-3 -> Battlefields (no Barracks, Battlefields Stores or The Foundry) -> Skycrown Battlements -> Rakkis Crossing -> Fields of Slaughter (Caverns of Frost) -> Tower of the Damned Level 1 -> onwards to the end of Tower of the Cursed Level 2.

The only places where I did not have 5 Nephalem Valor stacks were Core and Keep L1, and as those two got rather low scores in XP/Second, my official routes would not change at all if I tried every area without any stacks.

edit: those who farm mp1 should notice these numbers are for mp3.. I know my friend barb also favors mp3 over mp1, because he can't fill his fury on mp1 properly.. I personally go for mp1 and put some magic find gear on.

Pretty big factual error:Mp3 and valor already gives you 60% + 75% bonus exp. That's 235% total, perfect leo+ruby+hellfire is another 96%. That's a ~29% increase, at most around 40% depending on the length of the run, not the ~96% you used.

Other than the bonus items, great to have the figures summed up.You may also want to note that skycrown, stonefort and rakkis are fixed layout so they areslightly better than the figures would suggest for some classes. Also, if you wp to crater2then pop in to cursed1 at the end. There is usually an elite before the first turn,has a possible goblin spawn and you save the tp channeling with the wp.Tldr is still core/damned1 for quick ~4 stacks and then crater2/keep2/rakkis.

+imho lose some of the exclamation marks, they are an eyesore when used too often.

you guys can trust Sky. He is the best farmer i've seen so far in D3. I played with a lot of lvl100 barbs and DH some with twice more dmg than skyhigh..... and they all look like noobs when you compare with this guy^^

I dont want to take away the hard work you guys put into your farming guides but boooring lol 4 acts and you wanna play like bots, cant think of anything that would make me want to quit faster haha

I tried to play with low-life (24k) glass cannon - always challenge - don't die much, but every time when i stop spinning :D also doing some act2 mp10 keys farming (not that i need them) with higher ehp gear, to change a scenery :-)

Nice info but do the individual map figures include the NV buff ?Adding time to port off the map would also help with working out elite per second. For example tower of the cursed lvl on you can run in a circle and use the waypoint which is quicker than teleporting.

Thanks for the great work will be using this info to try some new runs.